


Legacy

by nonky



Category: Being Human (US/Canada)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 23:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17990495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: Family was impossible for vampires, and life kept giving Aidan dramatic reminders whenever he started to forget.Spoilers: Up to Episode 1x09, with minor spoilers interpreted from the 1x10 sneak peek.





	Legacy

He thought feeling Bernie collapse to the ground was the worst, but then Aidan had to burn the body. The indignity of it seemed horrifying, until the smell started rolling up and around him in the forest like a cloud of blame.

Another small life, a man in the making who would have loved and cared for a mother who didn't have her husband anymore . . . it was beyond explaining.

He went back to the city, stood outside the house and couldn't go in. Josh was there, and he might have told Sally. There were no allies in that place for Aidan until the werewolf calmed down. He could barely stand to drive to the hotel, but he could feel the break in his soul coming up fast. He needed to be somewhere with a pair of arms that would hold him down.

Rebecca let him in and lingered in the doorway, searching the parking lot for Aidan's car. “Where's Bernie? Did you leave him in the car,” she asked, not yet worried, just concerned. “Where did you guys go?”

Aidan shook his head mutely, pushing the door shut and dragging her inside. She had showered and changed, using the time to get herself together for another bizarre attempt at instant parenthood. He knew Rebecca had truly wanted to help the boy. It wasn't her fault she'd gone so wrong. She was freshly scrubbed without the heavy makeup that somehow equated to her new existence for her – sweet and hopeful and about to hate him.

“Rebecca . . . “

“Did he get away from you? We have to go look for him! Come on!”

“We can't,” he sighed, swallowing a sound that might have come out a roar or just a sob.

Rebecca was getting her purse and hauling on her coat, hurrying to prove herself. Aidan remembered the way she'd clutched Bernie and apologized. Anyone would go insane trying to guard a child vampire. It wasn't her fault she couldn't do the impossible. He would explain that to her, when he could. The words wouldn't form without that rising wave of screaming overtaking them.

“We have to, Aidan. He's only a little boy. He'll be waiting for us to find him. Where did you take him?”

The woods, the stake, the hunt where a sweet little boy became a martyr to their failed relationship; Aidan couldn't tell her that. He thought about lies. None of them seemed plausible or palatable. Bernie had died an honest, tragic death, and it should have been the end. Finishing him off was a mercy. But the kid had been brave and he hadn't suffered. Rebecca should know that he hadn't suffered.

“I – Rebecca -” He couldn't even think with her looking at him with restrained worry. She was trying to be fair, not criticize him until she knew he'd screwed up. Her hands pulled at the front of his shirt, drawing him to look at her.

“It's okay, but we need to go. Just tell me the turns and I'll drive,” Rebecca told him. “Aidan, he's a good boy. I'm sure he hasn't hurt anyone.”

He shook his head rapidly, gore rising as the other dead boys flickered across his mind's eye. Four boys were dead and it all led back to him. If Aidan hadn't kept that disgusting video, he wouldn't have been afraid to protect Bernie from those bullies. It was unforgivable.

“Aidan,” his name came out like a whined denial. “Oh, no, Aidan. Just tell me where he is.”

He wrenched her hands down, backing away. Rebecca cornered him by the bed. She put her hands out and blinked away tears.

“I'll go by myself! Just tell me - tell me where I can find him!”

No one could find Bernie, no one could hurt him where he was. Aidan was sure of it. The consolation was barely a glimmer in the fog of his thoughts. There were so many miserable details, and cliches would never give Rebecca permission to stop mothering that poor boy.

“You won't,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

Her slap hit his face and he didn't avoid it, falling back on the mattress. Rebecca crawled up next to him, pushing down on his shoulders as Aidan shut his eyes. Her voice wouldn't stop, uttering the high-pitched demands to know what he'd done.

“Bernie was lost,” Aidan told her thickly. “He was lost, and I -”

Her face then was too bereft to continue. He lost his nerve and she thumped him on the chest. “What?! What did you do, Aidan? What did you do to our boy?”

He shoved her and got up. Rebecca trailed him around the room, repeating the same flat accusations madly. He couldn't breathe. Her voice was everywhere he turned, beating it into him that any emotional distance he'd thought to keep was decimated. He and Rebecca would be together forever, and Bernie was meant to be the child they'd never have on their own. It was twisted, but that didn't make him abnormal for wanting it. Any man would be proud to have Bernie as his son.

Aidan dashed for the bathroom, gagging into the sink. She caught up to him and helped him peel out of the sweaty leather jacket. The anger fell off into an eerie, charged silence. Rebecca waited until he was sure he wouldn't vomit, let him rinse out his mouth and met his eyes in the mirror.

“Please, Aidan.” She was crying, hands gnarled in his jacket like she could wring answers out. “What happened to Bernie?”

Rebecca's calm was at once the worst of all of it. It was watching the very idea of love die. She had been a mother, and now she was not. And he had no way to explain it because there was no comfort once a child was taken away.

“I took him to the woods, and I told him we would hunt deer, then I came around behind him and staked him. It was quick. He wouldn't have felt it.”

Resignation dulled him, and tears blinded him. Aidan didn't see the stiff fear turn to crazed wrath. He let her take him down to the floor, lying there as her punches turned into impotent jabs.

“You put him down like a rabid dog! He was mine, too! You had no right!”

But he had been right to do it. Aidan knew the rational reasons wouldn't sway Rebecca, but the mercy of it would. Bernie had been hungry and confused, utterly ignorant of everything about his new state. He was never going to see his mother again, nor would his innocence protect him from becoming a killer. Children were worse, not in what they could do, but in the bald corruption of watching a child forced to be a killer.

He had freed Bernie, helped the boy the last way anyone could. He wasn't wrong to do it.

On top of him, Rebecca's fists rose as if to strike him again. Aidan had already decided he wouldn't fight back against her rage. He braced for another round, but she slumped back.

Instantly, Aidan wanted to beg for the violence. He knew it was still inside her, turning in on her soul and slicing bits off. That was where the death of a child really happened, and he couldn't do a thing for her anymore. He tried to hold on to the certainty he'd been right. He held on to that so hard the words stopped meaning anything.

He called out to her as she stood up, eyes glazed and paler than anyone should ever be. Rebecca wandered out of the bathroom, dragged her feet to the door and left without acknowledging his feeble voice. Aidan had no comfort for her, and the rational part of his mind was dogged with twin memories of boys he'd killed from trying to be their father.

He would never be able to explain; not even to himself.


End file.
